Utah lawmakers very well may be representing the views of their constituents as they insist that the federal government's looming fiscal crisis be fixed  or just temporarily avoided  without any new sources of revenue. But they are not representing our best interests. Or the facts.

The view expressed by the Utah members of the lame duck Congress  Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee, Reps. Rob Bishop, Jason Chaffetz and Jim Matheson  is that any possibility of raising revenues is so wrong that they would much rather just punt than do a deal with the White House.

This despite the fact that President Obama was clearly re-elected on his promise of allowing the Bush-era tax cuts to expire for households with incomes of more than $250,000 a year. Exit polls showed, in fact, that voter support for higher taxes on the rich, as part of a deficit-reduction package, was higher than voter support for Obama's re-election. ...

... things essentially are back to the way they were before the election, but don't take that to mean that the status quo is acceptable anymore. Voters want to see things get done, but they're more moderate than many people have made them out to be. ...

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